Posted on 12/14/2005 2:52:01 PM PST by offtherose
"As the days grow shorter, conservative activists claiming to speak for American Christendom raise their voices, not for a rousing round of "Good King Wenceslaus," but to complain that the roughly 75 to 80 percent of Americans who profess allegiance to some denomination or another of Christianity constitute a cruelly oppressed minority."
I've never heard a conservative commentator say Christians are a minority. Most immigrants are from Catholic countries so that's not likely to change.
'Xmas' in the title is the tip-off. I ain't going to bother with the rest of it...
A year-old screed.
Words mean something, Mr Sanchez. Nobody is complaining that Christians are an oppressed minority; they're complaining that Christians are an oppressed majority. Oppressing a minority is at most wicked and at least bad manners; oppressing a majority is twisted and insupportable. Sooner or later, the majority hits back, with consequences the minority will not like.
And I speak in my capacity as a largely well-behaved atheist.
*yawn*
Get lost troll. Sheesh you people make me sick.
Get lost troll. Sheesh you people make me sick.
Get a grip, man. Joining FR to post a relevant article does not automatically make one a Troll. That is always the knee-jerk reaction of people when the poster is new and they don't like the article.
I'm glad offtherose joined and posted this article.
Hmmmm...
Thank you, Mr. Smith. I posted because a wanted facilitate a conservation on this issue with (mostly) politically like-minded individuals.
Wrong on all counts. Try again please.
I find it good to know what my opponents think. They act of refuting them will help make your own argument stronger in the end.
Why?
without any evidence, to call someone a troll based on the date they joined here is ridiculous. I have been accused once of being a troll, with the justification for the accustation that I joined here only 3-4 months ago or something. So I empathize with you. My post was an honest response to your post. as for this, i need to re-write it, with all due respect, because it is exceedingly poor grammar, and I am not 100% sure that it means what you want it to mean:
"I find it good to know what my opponents think. They act of refuting them will help make your own argument stronger in the end."
If I may:
"I welcome comments from those who hold an opposing viewpoint. By addressing their comments I will make my point clearer and thereby strengthen my position"
Thanks..
"The X abbreviation of 'Xmas' for 'Christmas' is neither modern nor disrespectful. The notion that it is a new and vulgar representation of the word 'Christmas' seems to stem from the erroneous belief that the letter 'X' is used to stand for the word 'Christ' because of its resemblance to a cross, or that the abbreviation was deliberately concocted "to take the 'Christ' out of Christmas." Actually, this usage is nearly as old as Christianity itself, and its origins lie in the fact that the first letter in the Greek word for 'Christ' is 'chi,' and the Greek letter 'chi' is represented by a symbol similar to the letter 'X' in the modern Roman alphabet. Hence 'Xmas' is indeed perfectly legitimate abbreviation for the word 'Christmas' (just as 'Xian' is also sometimes used as an abbreviation of the word 'Christian').
None of this means that Christians (and others) aren't justified in feeling slighted when people write 'Xmas' rather than 'Christmas,' but the point is that the abbreviation was not created specifically for the purpose of demeaning Christ, Christians, Christianity, or Christmas -- it's a very old artifact of a very different language."
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/xmasabbr.asp
Well, deep in conservative christian country where I was born and raised, to replace the name of Christ with an X was a bit short of blasphemy. I will offer that it may not be good justification for not reading the entire text, but my money is on; it is a clue to what follows.....
Post #18, for your reference. I lived it. No article or historical reference can get closer than that. It is what it is...
I must also comment that the text of your post, from wherever you copied it, is hogwash. It is disrespectful to some. It is vulgur to some. the rest just doesn;t make any sense, from a logical perspective, letter 'chi' and all. As I wrote before somewhere, too many points to address and not enough time.......
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